Hostel life and FOOD (Venice, LA)

  Venice Beach Hostel is actually pretty cool. If I had a private room I would be more than happy with this place for a longer holiday or a short stay. It is an old building with loads of little hidden places to chill in, aswel as the common and kitchen area. The patios are perfect for people watching the characters of Venice from afar. The staff aren’t particularly friendly, which doesn’t seem to be news to anyone but oh well, I suppose we don’t need LOADS of chit chat but smiles are always worthwhile.

I keep saying to myself I am going to cook some stuff, there is a kitchen, but such good food is all around and I can’t help but dip into here and there. I suppose I am treating this leg of my trip as a holiday so indulging in the local foods is nesc.

My first stay in a shared dorm hostel is going swimmingly. I enjoy the comings and goings and managed to bag myself a sick little semi private nook off the main room. I can still hear and see the life but I can keep back. My purpose for this trip is to go inward so it is nice that I can have the best of both worlds.

I do, however, have savage blisters, weirdo tan lines and clothing that isn’t really perfect for the everchanging ‘Grey May/June Gloom’ climate but it is A OK. I am managing to explore a lot, and bonus’ for the sandy beach that runs miles! I get to keep pressure off my blisters by walking in the sand and still cover fair ground.

In my room has been a Swedish girl who was on a ‘pretty expensive trip’ to get her tattoos finished. She told me how her mum used to work in Venice Beach as an Aerobics instructor so back in the day so was kind of part of the Venice Beach muscle mania situation! Very cool.

2 girls from Norway arrived on the same day as I did and they were very cool. Super chill, had been a bit more around Cali and were just about ready to get back home after studying English since Christmas.

2 Brit girls blasted through the doors and hung out for a couple of days. They were disappointed by the US club culture (fair enough – Imho yank establishments are not up to the game of making a night last past 2am!). It was nice to have a quick little blast of banter and homie vibes, one of the girls was off to the land of the Kiwis and the other was sticking around these parts for a while longer.

FOOD

Seed Kitchen is the winner so far but Trattoria, EWR hotel and a vegan juice factory place along the beach are all fair opponents. Café collage is where I had a mean omelette sandwich (my dad was puzzled too, don’t worry) and lucky for me, this omelet did not include cheese! woo!

 

I had brunch at James’ beach, a bit more of an upmarket establishment ( pretty la dee da – Lot’s of Ralph Lauren and Hollister around) Service wasn’t particularly great, I asked for no cheese in my omelette and it came dripping in cheddar but they did switch it out super quick so that worked out all good. The lady next to me ordered the French toast, which was MASSIVE! But looked incredible.

My summary of Venice Beach food wise and accommodation wise is there is something for every budget for sure! If you are feeling a bit Nancy then you can for sure spend it up here, but if you are like me and doing the whole thing on a string then you can eat good cheap and sleep ok cheap.

Having been here 5 days, I am so ready to move on to the last hoorah of my holiday part of the trip.

You will find me in the desert if you need me…

Viva

Las

VEGAS

Bish

Fallen Angel’s Delight (Venice Beach, LA)

Funny how I feel at ease down here at Venice Beach huh?

     

Beach, Sunsets, Skaters, Yoga, colorful characters, strong sense of community and a genuine feel of love down in these parts. Oh and dispensaries all over the damn place, not my vibe at the moment but still interesting to see how the new capitalist business of weed is booming.

I’ve stumbled on tons of curbside photo-shoots, a commercial being filmed at the skate park starring the skaters I had watched the day before. There is definitely chat of upping their insta games to get these commercials, Big Bucks!

It seems that everywhere I look the divide between money and broke is becoming more aggressive. Big developers are monopolizing homes on this coast too! All too familiar. London has the same, as does New York. We are all living on this planet so we can’t we just Be? Instead of always trying to make more more more. These same developers are working alongside the police to help ‘clean up the community’ i.e exterminate the homeless population and folks who don’t have a whole lot.

If we just keep moving these people on where do we expect them to go?! Why can’t they live down here by the beach with pleasant surroundings?

Rant over. For now!

Chili’s Scar Tissue – Song of the Day –

Bit of a different vibe but I feel it is fitting for my recent spontaneity. I think I am healing some stuff so Scar Tissue seems fitting.

And the Chillis are all about Cali so this shiz works.

Probably going to have more of them this week!

I read Anthony Keidis’ autobiography back in my BIMM days so I have a special place in my heart for these guys. Reminds me of some of my favourite guys from back in the days of covering songs for fun!

❤

Prelude to my drift.

I had saved up an amount of wedge to put toward my return to NY. The purpose of my return would have been to pick the mindframe back up that I had left, returning to the scene of the crime* if you will. ( *‘The Crime’ being the realization that I was living a pretty intensely self-abusive lifestyle that needed to stop. This lead to my dramatic change of pace) The money wasn’t burning a hole in my pocket, I was absolutely at peace with returning to The City in the beautiful Autumn time.

Then I saw cheap one-way flights to LAX.

Damn targeted advertising and Damn Google Chrome for knowing me too damn well!

I had already been toying with the idea of New Orleans since being so obsessed with Solange Knowles, and knowing that she was bigging it up so much and added to the fact that Bey had also just bought a house down there, there must be something worth a trip so my little brain tick tick ticked until I had made a plan. This was a Tuesday evening. By 11pm I had already told my dad on his way to bed, he didn’t know what to make of it, let alone that I would book my flights the next day!

Anyway blah blah.

I’m on the plane and suddenly it hits me.

Fuck!